


Bless God, We Went As Soldiers

by language_escapes



Series: Chosen and Defined 'Verse [5]
Category: St Trinian's, St Trinian's (2007 2009)
Genre: Gen, Minor Character(s), Ridiculous, Surprise Ending, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-10
Updated: 2011-01-10
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:52:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/language_escapes/pseuds/language_escapes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In space, no one can hear you scream.  Except Celia can hear screams aplenty.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bless God, We Went As Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lyssie](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lyssie).



> Military language.

The situation does not look good.

Celia checks her gun and crouches lower. There are shots fired over her head, but they all miss her. She can hear scuffling nearby, but she’s pretty sure it’s all her people. She’s cased the area pretty well, and there are no rogue agents. She’s breathing hard- she got hit pretty heavily, last time, but she’s doing better now, thanks to Tara, their medic- but she’ll be fine in a few minutes, if she can just sit.

The scuffling sounds louder now, and she raises her gun.

The stars seem closer in this quadrant of space, but it’s probably just an illusion. Celia can’t remember what the teachers told her, but it’s not like science matters here. What matters is her team. She can’t see any of them now. She’s beginning to get worried. There was an ambush at what she and her team are calling Moonrock Pass, and she thought they all got out alive, but now she’s not so sure. She licks her lips.

The whine of a gun warming up alerts her just in time, and she spins, raising her gun to chest level, and immediately lowers it.

“Lucy!” she hisses, and drags the girl out from the open and into her crevice.

“Celia,” Lucy says, sounding relieved. She pushes the visor back from her eye and looks around. “Have you seen the others?”

“No,” Celia says. She looks at Lucy’s vest. “You’ve been hit.”

Lucy grins shakily. “Just a little bit. I’ve got some time left.”

Celia frowns and wants to send her to Tara, but Lucy looks like she’d fight her on it, so Celia drops it. There are bigger things worth fighting for. Like the rest of this rock. “Ok,” she says instead. “Do you know if everyone got out at Moonrock Pass?”

Lucy sobers. “Annabelle.”

Celia stills, but then shakes her head. No time to mourn that now. “It was a calculated risk,” she says. “It was her choice to make.”

Lucy shudders. “Still, what a way to go.”

Celia doesn’t want to dwell on it. “I’m going to go find the others. Did Kelly mention headquarters, or, like, a new strategy?” When Lucy shakes her head, Celia sighs. She doesn’t like going into these things blind. Polly had a strategy mapped out for them when they went into this mission, as always, but without communication- communication is worthless on this rock- they hadn’t been able to adjust for when everything went FUBAR. As it did. As it always did. Celia hates missions like this. “All right. Do you want to wait here, or come with me?”

Lucy looks grim, but stands up, gripping her vest. “I may be walking wounded, but I’d rather die on the field than in a corner,” she says. Celia grins.

“The St. Trinian’s way,” she says. “Strength and honor.”

So off they go, gripping their guns and warily eying the large, dusty moon rocks and all the enemies they may conceal. Celia has grenades still, though Lucy is all out. She sheepishly explains that she used them all at Moonrock Pass, but Celia pats her on the back for it. She probably saved lives.

It’s eerily silent, which is wrong. Usually you can hear the whine of a gun at all time, or cursing. Celia doesn’t like the silence. It means something is wrong. It means someone has been plotting, and it probably wasn’t them. Polly is a believer in silence, but she can never get them to shut up.

“Do you think everyone headed for the shuttle?” Lucy whispers.

The shuttle is a blown out piece of wreckage that everyone in their right mind tries to avoid because it’s nearly four levels of twisted metal and perfect cover. In other words, a death trap. In other words, the perfect place for a final battle. Celia bites her lip and carefully adjusts her helmet.

“If they did, we’re all dead,” she whispers back.

As if in reply, Celia sees a flash of light come from the shuttle, several hundred feet away. The explosion of a grenade. She curses. Of course. Polly has a fondness for suicide tactics in the end. It helps that her suicide tactics tend to work, even if they incur severe casualties. It’s just that most of the casualties are from the other side.

“C’mon,” Celia says, and they both take off running.

When they burst into the shuttle, they immediately drop into a tuck and roll, guns flaring above them. Celia rolls to her knees, aiming her gun at one of the boys who is pointing at Lucy and pulls her trigger twice, nodding in satisfaction as his vest explodes red. She reloads quickly and aims at two more boys, taking them out in quick succession. Behind her, Lucy is cursing, language escaping her mouth that would probably shock her mother. Someone yanks a grenade from her belt but she doesn’t stop them, knowing by feel that it’s Bianca.

“Duck!” Bianca shouts, and they all dive for cover.

They wait until the blast is done, and then stand up. The boys are all down, and the women are still standing, if looking worse for wear. Bianca is sweating, and she’s covered in red, but she still looks like she’ll be ok. Celia runs her hands over Lucy and is relieved to see that she’ll be ok. She still wants to get her to Tara, but it can wait for a bit longer. Taylor and Andrea are standing together by some stairs, and they look like they haven’t even been touched by the hardship of war, which Celia thinks is a little strange, but then, it’s Taylor and Andrea, so.

“Casualties?” she asks, standing and checking her ammunition. She needs to get some more grenades, but her gun is still good.

“A few First Years,” Andrea reports immediately, straightening. “Saffy threw herself on a grenade. Bella… isn’t doing so well. We,” Andrea pauses suddenly, looking choked up. “Celia. We lost Tania.”

Celia’s eyes widen. “Oh god. Has anyone told Tara yet?”

Taylor nods. “She tried to resuscitate her, but it was too late. We could see there was no point, but she just kept trying. Annabelle’s gone too.”

Celia waves aside Annabelle, but Tania is a real hardship. They’ve never done a mission without Tania. She doesn’t know if they can. Tania is their explosives expert.

But there is no time to mourn, she reminds herself. What’s done is done, and they need to accomplish the task. She grabs some grenades off the boys and tucks them into her supplies belt, tossing a bunch to Lucy. “Whose plan was it to move to Suicide Shuttle?” she asks snidely.

“Polly’s,” everyone answers in unison. She rolls her eyes. Of course.

“Do we have an objective?”

“Kill as many of these suckers as we can,” Bianca says immediately, and she and Taylor high-five. Celia rolls her eyes again. _Of course_.

“Does _Polly_ have an objective?”

“Oh,” Taylor says.

“Uh,” Bianca responds.

Celia sighs. “Never mind, I’ll figure it out myself. Coming, Lucy?”

Lucy nods and they take off up the stairs. The sounds of battle are all around them, and this is more like a regular mission. Celia really isn’t a war type of person- she prefers Operator, when possible- but this is urgent, this is important, and besides, Tania is gone. She shoots the boys with a vengeance, struggling to avoid their gunfire, diving into hiding spots where she can, ducking when she can’t. Lucy is like a tower of rage. When she can’t shoot them, she chucks her gun at them, knocking them down long enough for Celia to shoot them. They make a good team, and they plow through the hallways, leaving a trail of bodies behind them. They’re careful to reload and are never caught with an empty gun. They’ve seen that happen enough to others, to amateurs, to ensure that it never happens to them.

Celia isn’t sure where the rest of their team is. On the upper-levels, it would seem, because the first level is almost completely empty except for the boys. It makes her uneasy, because she can’t think of a single plan of Polly’s that works like this. Polly has been planning this mission for weeks, and has gone over fifty different permutations with Celia. She knows all of them. They don’t look like this. And Polly is not known for improvising.

They’re about to turn the corner to a second set of stairs when suddenly, Celia finds herself on the floor, a gun to her head. She sees Lucy go dead white and point her gun at the boy, but the boy growls, “Do it and I shoot her.”

“You’re going to shoot her anyway,” Lucy says, her voice shaking slightly.

“I won’t,” the boy says. “But you’re shaking and you won’t kill me immediately. Shoot me, and I’ll go for the headshot.”

“Shoot him, Luce,” Celia grits out. “Don’t listen to him.”

But Lucy lowers her gun anyway, and Celia curses. Lucy is too damn nice. All is not fair in love and war. Sometimes you just have to shoot the bastard.

“Good,” the boy says. “Now, girl. I need you to get a message to your mastermind.”

“What makes you think we have a mastermind?” Celia asks, and the boy snorts.

“Please. We’re not stupid. Your attacks are too well coordinated not to have a mastermind. Tell her that the boys will be launching their counteroffensive from the center hallway, and she should focus her forces from there.”

Celia takes a moment for all of this to sink in. “Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said.”

Lucy takes over. “What we heard was you tell us your strategy so that we could _win_.”

“Yeah.”

Celia attempts to twist around and fails. The boy has a really, really strong grip. “And why should we trust you?”

“ _You_ don’t have to. Your mastermind does. Tell her. You have thirty minutes to reach her. Go,”

The boy jumps up and makes a run for it before Celia can get her gun and shoot him. Lucy may have said she wouldn’t shoot him, but she made no such promise. She lies on the ground for a minute, and then gets to her feet, grabbing Lucy by the wrist and breaking into a light jog.

“Where are we going?” Lucy asks, following her.

“We have to find Polly, obviously,” Celia says, shooting three boys who jump out at her. She does _not_ have time for this. She has a war to win.

On the way there, they find out from Peaches that Anoushka suicide-bombed half of the enemy, and so they’re back to winning the war, which is a bonus, but they’ve lost half of the First Years somehow, which is a negative. Plus, Peaches is bleeding out as she tells them, cradled in Chloe’s lap, and Chelsea is dead next to them. Luring the enemy into trading secrets for kisses had worked for a while, until they’d figured it out, and then they’d paid them back with vengeance. When Peaches dies, Chloe stands up, gives them directions to where they’ll find Polly and Kelly, and takes one of Lucy’s grenades, smiling brightly as she goes to find a group of the enemy to take with her. Celia and Lucy salute her and then move on.

God, Celia hates these missions.

They’re ambushed on the stairs to the third level of the shuttle, but Lucy takes them all out with a scream of primal fury before Celia can get off a shot, and she can’t help but edge away a little in fear. Lucy smiles sweetly and shrugs.

“I’m a little tired today,” she says, and Celia just nods, and they continue on their way.

On the third level, things are quieter until they’re suddenly not, and Celia tosses grenades and leaps over low walls and through broken windows, grateful for her helmet. She winds up running part way up a wall at one point, which would be pretty wicked if it weren’t in defense of her very life, and she lands on one knee, reloading and taking out the last of the enemy. She spins to grin at Lucy, and her grin falls away into horror.

“Oh no…” she says. “Luce…”

Lucy is lying on her side, hand clutching at her vest, which is saturated in red. She’s smiling weakly at Celia, and she shakes her head.

“Don’t mourn, Celia,” Lucy says, and Celia feels her eyes fill with tears.

“You came so far,” Celia says, and Lucy laughs.

“I did. And you have to keep going. You have to finish the mission. You have to get to Polly, Celia. You have to tell her about the enemy.”

Celia nods, wiping at her eyes. “I will, Lucy. I will.”

Lucy reaches out and grabs her hand. “And if you could, tell her how far I came. Tell her I did good, ok?”

Celia squeezes her hand and stands up. “I will, Lucy. I will tell her you did great.”

Celia takes one last look at her, but then hears shuffling and looks at her watch. She only has ten minutes left before the forces of evil are supposed to descend upon her team, and she has to tell Polly. She nods at Lucy and takes off running, double checking her gun even as she bolts through the halls of the shuttle.

She doesn’t bother shooting the boys she sees, figuring she’ll have ample opportunity when Polly tells her the new plan for annihilating them. She doesn’t know if what the boy told her is truth or not, but she knows that it doesn’t matter, because Polly will sort it all out, and no matter what, they will come out victorious from this mission. Even with all the casualties, they have never come out defeated from a mission. St. Trinian’s never does. Big or small, they always win.

Naturally, Kelly had selected the shuttle’s bridge as the base of operations, and it’s guarded by Zoe and Jess, who let her in as soon as they see her. Polly and Kelly look up from the front panel when she runs in, and she salutes.

“Generals! I have news from the front!” she blurts. Kelly opens her mouth to say something, but Polly waves a hand in front of her mouth and interrupts her.

“Report, Lieutenant.”

“A soldier from the enemy alerted Corporal Lucy and I about a plan to launch a counteroffensive from the center hallway to commence in five minutes, sir!”

Celia breaks her salute to stand at attention. Polly looks at her and frowns. Kelly tilts her head to the side.

“This soldier, do you know who he was?”

Celia sighs. “It was the soldier we hoped for, sir” she says. Polly suddenly looks triumphant and nods at Kelly.

“Perfect,” she says. Kelly walks out and starts shouting for all remaining soldiers to enact plan B point 9, which makes no sense to Celia, but she suspects has to do with fighting the remaining enemy. She slides to parade rest and looks over at Polly, who is muttering to herself and pulling her gun out of its holster, checking her ammo.

“General Polly?” she asks. Polly looks up.

“Yes, Lieutenant Celia?”

“I wanted to let you know that Corporal Lucy fought admirably to the last. She- she only perished moments ago. She saved my life several times, sir,” Celia says, and Polly smiles tightly.

“When we issue awards later, I’ll be sure to take into account your words,” she says, and Celia nods. “Now, I suggest you join one of the squads. I would recommend squad C.”

Celia nods, salutes again, and runs out of the room.

Within minutes, what is left of the St. Trinian’s Defenders of Anarchy is ambushing the center hallway, pouring upon their enemy with no mercy. Really, the boys stand no chance. They scream for their mothers, they pray to God, but the St. Trinian’s girls just keep firing, Celia among them. She has lost too many friends on the battlefield today. She will not lose more through being merciful.

Then, there is only one left standing. Celia grins. This is going to be fun.

“Take off your helmet and visor,” she says. It’s the boy who held the gun to her head. “I want everyone to see this.”

“Oh, come on Celia,” the boy says. Celia shakes her head.

“You _tackled_ me. It hurt,” she pouts. The boy sighs dramatically.

“General, can’t she just shoot me?” the boy says. Celia can’t tell if he’s talking to Kelly or Polly, but Kelly answers.

“No, I think the dramatic reveal is the thing to do. It’s funny every year.”

The boy sighs and takes off his helmet. Long brown hair tumbles out, the dead enemy starts shouting, and Annabelle starts laughing hysterically. Celia shoots Annabelle in the chest, and the lights immediately brighten. An automated voice comes on, saying “Thank you for playing Laser Tag. Please collect your equipment and join your fallen comrades. Exits are to your left.”

The Annual Girls-Versus-Boys Laser Tag Challenge has been played at St. Trinian’s for years. As Celia joins in the ritual, “Losers! Losers! Losers!” chant, though, she thinks it is possible that they take it a bit far. Most of the boys from the neighboring boy’s school are bleeding.

“Miss Fritton, really, I think your girls take the game a little bit far,” Mr. Whitton is saying. “Did you know our boys picked up on a _numbers station_ being broadcast from your school the other day?”

“Really?” Polly says sharply, and she looks over at Anoushka angrily. “They weren’t supposed to be able to get that.”

“I assure you,” Anoushka says smugly, remarkably healed from her suicide bombing. “They would never be able to decode it. And anything they did decode would merely lead them astray. Have you never heard of red herrings, Polly?”

“All strategies go through me first, Private Anoushka. _That_ is why you are still a private,” Polly snaps. Anoushka laughs.

“I am still private because I like being a private. It is a funny title.”

“You see? Military ranks! Too far!” Mr. Whitton says. “And we found transmitters in the school. Some of your girls came and tried to bribe some of my boys to defect! There have been _spy planes_! We don’t plan _in advance_ for this game, Miss Fritton. It’s a _game_!”

“Well,” Miss Fritton says primly. “Maybe if you _did_ , you’d win. Now pay up, Whitton, a deal’s a deal.”

Mr. Whitton looks white with fury, but he hands over fifty pounds and then storms away, nearly disappearing in a crowd of boys who are shouting about how switching equipment is cheating. Celia rolls her eyes. They’ve been getting a girl onto the boy’s team for almost ten years now, and the facility has never accused them of cheating. There’s a reason they keep coming back. That, and the wicked space setting.

Miss Fritton looks at the assembled girls, who are dressed in all black, their hair tucked away in balaclavas, ink black smudged underneath their eyes. Perhaps they take Laser Tag too seriously, but they win every year too, Celia thinks.

“Well girls,” Miss Fritton says. “Congratulations. Again. You’ve done the school proud, and we’ve earned yet another trophy. The managers are very much looking forward to viewing this year’s footage- Saffy, I hear you jumped on a grenade? Very noble- and will mail us our trophy afterward. Next year, they promise us Eton. How do you feel about taking on those swotty chaps, eh?”

Celia joins in the cheers, jumping up and down excitedly. Taking down Eton, now that would be a rush! Miss Fritton raises her hands in the air, and silence falls once more.

“Now then. Let’s get to the bus. The sooner we get back to St. Trinian’s, the sooner we can discuss derring-do, war wounds, Annabelle’s time on the other side, and get those awards. To the bus!”

As Celia walks out with everyone else, joining in with the laughter and the jostling, she can’t help but giggle. They are ridiculous, but some traditions are absolutely worth keeping.


End file.
